NATIONAL COMMISSION OF FINE ARTS
Immediately after abolishing the Council of Fine Arts President Taft
undertook to interest Congress in the establishment of a permanent
Commission of Fine Arts. A bill was accordingly presented in the United
States Senate by Hon. Elihu Root. In the House of Representatives the
bill was sponsored by Hon. Samuel W. McCall. Various amendments were
made to the measure in both the Senate and House of Representatives and
it was finally adopted by the act approved May 17, 1910, as follows:
_Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled_, That a permanent
Commission of Fine Arts is hereby created to be composed of seven
well-qualified judges of the fine arts, who shall be appointed by the
President, and shall serve for a period of four years each, and until
their successors are appointed and qualified. The President shall
have authority to fill all vacancies. It shall be the duty of such
Commission to advise upon the location of statues, fountains, and
monuments in the public squares, streets, and parks in the District
of Columbia, and upon the selection of models for statues, fountains,
and monuments, erected under the authority of the United States
and upon the selection of artists for the execution of the same.
It shall be the duty of the officers charged by law to determine
such questions in each case to call for such advice. The foregoing
provisions of this act shall not apply to the Capitol Building of
the United States and the building of the Library of Congress. The
Commission shall also advise generally upon questions of art when
required to do so by the President, or by any committee of either
House of Congress. Said Commission shall have a secretary and such
other assistance as the Commission may authorize, and the members of
the Commission shall each be paid actual expenses in going to and
returning from Washington to attend the meetings of said Commission
and while attending the same.
Sec. 2. That to meet the expenses made necessary by this act an
expenditure of not exceeding $10,000 a year is hereby authorized.
The duties of the Commission of Fine Arts have been enlarged since then
from time to time by Executive orders. Congress has also stipulated
in many recent enactments that the plans for certain designated
buildings, monuments, etc., must be approved by the Commission before
they can be accepted by the Government. The act of May 16, 1930,
gives the Commission control over certain portions of the District of
Columbia in the matter of private buildings, under what is known as the
Shipstead-Luce Act. Reports are published periodically.
The duties of the Commission, therefore, now embrace not only advising
upon the location of statues, fountains, and monuments in the public
squares, streets, and parks in the District of Columbia, etc., but in
fact all questions involving matters of art with which the Federal
Government is concerned.
[Illustration: CAPITOL GROUNDS AND UNION STATION PLAZA, 1917]
[Illustration: THE MALL, 1930]
The Commission has been in existence 29 years, during which time
many great artists of this country have served as its members. The
membership comprises three architects, a sculptor, a painter, a
landscape architect, and a lay member. Congress permits the Commission
to hold meetings, including committee meetings, both in and outside
of the District of Columbia, thus enabling it to give attention to
works of art in any part of the country in which the Government is
interested. A meeting of the Commission is usually held in Washington
each month, where the public-buildings program and other great projects
under way for the development of the National Capital are requiring its
particular attention.
In the work of the Commission of Fine Arts we see the splendid results
achieved through the collaboration of architects, sculptors, painters,
and landscape architects. The Commission exists primarily to serve
the Congress and its committees, the President, and the heads of the
Government Departments. There are exceptional cases when the Commission
of Fine Arts is called upon to advise with reference to fine arts
projects submitted by individuals. The Commission aims to maintain
standards of taste. The members themselves are prominent in their
respective professions and are “well-qualified judges of the fine arts.”
Prior to the establishment of the Commission of Fine Arts it was the
practice of Congress when legislation was enacted providing for a
public building, a monument, or other work of art to authorize the
appointment of a committee to advise it concerning the specific fine
arts project. Such a committee was as a rule composed of laymen,
unqualified to give advice on matters of art. Thereupon money was
appropriated to meet the expenses of a jury of award, in addition
to those of the committee; and when the project was completed, the
committee disbanded, leaving Congress without a recognized body to whom
matters pertaining to the fine arts could be referred, and requiring a
repetition of the appointment of a new committee for procuring some new
work of art desired by Congress. It was just such a situation as this
that existed in 1910 when Senator Root was a member of the Committee on
the Library. In a letter addressed to the Chairman of the Commission of
Fine Arts at the twenty-fifth anniversary of its establishment in May
1935, Senator Root stated:
Sometime about the early spring of 1910 some Senator had introduced
in the Senate a resolution providing for the purchase by the
Government of a number of paintings that nobody wanted to buy and
under the rule that resolution was referred to the Committee on the
Library. The responsibility for protecting the Government against a
waste of money was thus thrown upon the Committee.
A little discussion developed the fact that all the members of
the Committee had an uncomfortable feeling that the pictures were
probably worthless and no such purchase ought to be made but that no
member of the Committee felt any such confidence in his own knowledge
and judgment about such things as to feel like making a report to
the Senate based on his opinion, and maintaining that opinion on
the floor. We all felt that the Committee ought to have some way of
getting an expert opinion to guide it in making its report.
In the discussion we recalled Theodore Roosevelt’s appointment of
a Fine Arts Council, which fell to the ground because it had no
legal standing, and we recalled also the advantage received from the
report of park development of the informal commission selected by
the McMillan Committee, and we finally determined to ask Congress to
provide for the appointment of a fine arts commission which would
meet the need that our Committee was then experiencing and a similar
need which was liable to occur in a multitude of cases under which
Government officers had to pass on questions of art without being
really competent to perform such a duty. * * * I drafted a very brief
statute * * * and a little informal explanation of the need which the
Committee felt for expert assistance in the performing of its duties
carried the bill through.
And so, without creation of any power of legal compulsion, there
was brought to the service of the Government the authority of
competent opinion upon questions of art arising in the course of
administration, and widespread and habitual deference to such an
opinion has saved the Government and the community from God knows how
many atrocities.
From the time of its establishment, the Commission has been consulted
about every detail of the progress of the Plan of Washington, and also
about many works of art for which the Government makes appropriations.
This includes also works of art which our Government, as a result of
congressional enactment, presents to the governments and the peoples of
other countries to express our friendship and good will, or erects for
the use of our diplomatic corps abroad, or to perpetuate the memory of
our soldiers’ deeds of daring and courage. Good examples are the statue
of Leif Ericsson to Iceland, the statue of Henry Clay to Venezuela,
the American Embassy Building in Japan, and the World War Memorials in
Europe.
In creating the National Capital Park and Planning Commission by act
of April 30, 1926, Congress provided that purchases of lands made
thereunder shall have the advice of the Commission of Fine Arts.
During the years all proposed purchases have been approved. The two
Commissions have acted harmoniously in the work of developing the
District of Columbia according to carefully devised plans for parks,
playgrounds, and highways.
The first project that came before the Commission of Fine Arts, in
1910, was the Lincoln Memorial. The memorial during a period of 12
years had the continual attention of this Commission, and since its
dedication on May 30, 1922, it has been recognized as one of the great
memorials of the world. In the past 15 years the row of beautiful white
marble buildings near the Lincoln Memorial have been built, as also the
new Department buildings on Constitution Avenue. These are a part of
the great public buildings program that is in progress in the National
Capital.
[Illustration: THE CENTRAL COMPOSITION OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL]